The Diablo III Website explains that to combat fraud, as of the new version, digitally purchased editions of Diablo III will be quarantined as the Starter Edition for up to 72 hours (thanks GameSpot). Here's word:

As of patch 1.0.3, when purchasing a digital version of Diablo III through the online store or your Battle.net Account, players are restricted to the Starter Edition for the first 72 hours (sometimes less). Players on Starter Editions have the following restrictions:

• Act I up to the Skeleton King is available
• Level 13 cap
• Matchmaking available only with other Starter Edition players
• No Auction House access (Real Money or Gold)
• Global Play is not available. Players attempting to connect to Diablo III Starter Edition in a region other than their Battle.net Account's home region will receive Error 12. See the Global Play support article for more information.

Verno wrote on Jun 22, 2012, 10:30:Why is the onus on the customer to solve Blizzards problems for them? They just want to play the game. Restricting all digitally purchased accounts because of spammers/fraud is complete overkill. Again, its like making all pots drop no gold because someone was botting it. People like to explore, bust things (in fact environmental effects were even a marketing point) and collect stuff. Diablo 2 managed to thrive despite rampant exploits, account theft and unauthorized third party activity.

While I absolutely agree on the exploration, Pindleskins, chest runs, and all the odd stuff people agreed with Diablo2... and still goes on after 11 years (and it is retarded to nerf pots and so), I just arrived at a point that I can't tolerate gold spam anymore, seriously, It's all over me. We've come to a point where farmers/cheaters/whatever are doing absolutely their worst, completely ruining games, and NO game at all can seem to get rid of them. And you realize about all the effort those morons put into it when you see extreme measures like this.

Yes, the measure is excessive, but no one forces you to buy from bnet and pay for that, there are dozens of retailers that will offer you a bs free game for less money than bnet.

That's true and all, but I ordered the digital copy originally because it was convenient. I hope at least that they make this painfully obvious when purchasing a digital copy. I feel like if they feel the need to do this, then don't sell the game digitally at all. I would be pissed if I bought a game on steam, then found out the full game won't unlock for 3 days.